1. Lab Exercise Management Steven P. Levitan, University of Pittsburgh Design Automation Conference Sunday, June 9, 2002

2. Lab Environment Multiple Sun Servers Running Solaris 8 Tool Binaries and User Home Directories in AFS filespace PC-based Computer Lab Running Windows 2000 Connected through X-Win32

3. Lab Assignments Calculator Labs Using Verisity Specman & Mentor Graphics ModelSim GenBuf Rule Creation Using IBM RuleBase

4. Calculator 1 Black Box Testing Removed Internal Signals with compiler flag Done Using Two methods By Hand (waveform inspection,.do scripts) With Specman

5. Calculator 1 cont’d Dual method reasoning Students gain: Familiarity with simulator Insight on why test automation tools are needed It also proved useful in learning how to write effective “e” code Students knew the bugs from the 1 st assignment, and could focus on learning how to stress those bugs in a new language

6. Calculator 2 Black Box Testing Done Using Specman/ModelSim Students provided with a “shell”.e file where they fill in the functions The combined solution to the Calc1 assignment w/Specman

7. Calculator 3 Black Box Testing Done Using Specman/ModelSim Students worked in groups Previous were individual assignments Most divided the workload into functional testing areas (arithmetic, memory, concurrency, etc)

8. Calculator Assignment Grading Each calculator revision has ~8 bugs Individuals had to find 4 or more to receive an A for the assignment Groups had to find 6 or more to get an A

9. RuleBase Lab Students were to complete the IBM online RuleBase tutorial, and verify 2 new properties Each sender speaks to each receiver Every word of FIFO is used These include both new “rules” and “envs” definitions The DUT is a generalized 4-port buffer

10. Role of the TA The teaching assistant for the course Should know the design tool flow used Instructions already available for NCSim and ModelSim False Positives often found by students due to incorrect tool setup/initialization Should Understand the DUT Specs are ambiguous – there will be questions! Have Unix experience Not required, but helpful

11. Scripts/Administration Website has scripts for User Environment tool setup Calc2 bugfix applier Calc3 bugfix applier The TA’s account has to be given write permission to run the bug fixes Users need a relatively large quota Runtime simulation files